Modern unified messaging and email systems such as Unity™ available from Cisco and Outlook™ available from Microsoft, for example, enable users to generate, receive, and send electronic messages to other users associated with a common or shared network. These messages typically include a body portion containing the substantive information and a header portion containing non-substantive information as to the underlying message text, including routing information such as intended recipient “To” information, sender “From” information, and a general description of the topic “Subject” of the body portion. They often evolve into message threads whenever the recipient of an original message either replies to the original message or forwards it to one or more other users of the system. The vast majority of electronic messages in most electronic messaging systems are part of one or more message threads. Many message threads include input content contributions from a large number of users made during the lifetime of the thread. The input may include contributions of content spanning a wide variety of topics not necessarily related to the topic of the original message used to start the thread. The ability to inject new topics into message threads is useful as message threads evolve over time and across multiple users.
One problem, however, is that many users fail to update or otherwise modify the email subject when the topic changes or shifts as the message thread evolves over time. In general, the topic data in the “Subject” portion of the header information in modern unified messaging and email systems is essentially static and is configured to be set manually by the users. However, some users are reluctant to change the subject information generated by the originating user who created the first message, and other users simply ignore or never think about the header information as it relates to the topic of the content in the body portion of the electronic message. Also, in some cases, the originating user who creates the first message may forget to fill the Subject portions of the header with any information, resulting in a message thread initiation without any hint of a topic contained in the messages. This unchanged subject line, of course frustrates its main function which is to provide a convenient mechanism for users to preview the contents of their respective electronic mail message boxes without opening each message individually to look at its contents. Some recipients of the thread may ignore reading certain messages based on the topic stated in the unchanged/static subject line because the topic is not of interest to them. In reality, however, one or more topics of interest to them may have been introduced into the thread previously but without a corresponding update to the topic information in the subject field of the header information. Also, static Subject header information in a message thread with dynamic topics makes searching for and locating old messages difficult.